Blank Canvas

●Chapter 11●

I continuously jumped on the soft mattress of my bed with my face buried in a throw pillow. Squealing in glee which came out muffled, I hopped around like a drunk kangaroo. 

I still couldn't believe that Atlas actually complimented me on my smile. A straight off implication about liking it. Once worn out from my adrenaline filled hopping, I finally sat down. 

With my head resting on my arms, I could feel a small smile playing on my lips. Anything I felt and everywhere I looked, it all screamed magical. It was like my eyes had a brain of their own and it saw things differently. More like in a zealous light.

When I had entered the house earlier, I was all smiles and laughs. My mom had given me a funny look while Bert looked at me skeptically. Dad was not home so I was lucky to not get weird looks from him too. Not that I minded because I was in my own little bubble.

My mom on the other hand, even had the audacity to question my sanity as to whether I was hit by a truck or something. 

I wanted to scream my lungs out because I was feeling over the moon happy and the reason also happened to be none other than Atlas but I knew better than that. A big part of me didn't want to share these moments with anyone. I wished to keep them locked inside my heart to have them reserved to myself. 'Selfish, I know.'

I was brought out of my reverie when my mom shouted from downstairs, "Dinner is ready!"

I bit the insides of my cheeks to constrain my smiles and tried my best to put on a poker face the entire time I was with my family during the dinner. And damn, was it hard.

--

"Aria." Kris looked like she ran a marathon and seemed to be hesitant for some reason. My smile soon faded away when I glanced at her disheveled state. She looked scared for some reason which also scared me in turn.

"What's wrong, Kris?" My voice was laced with concern.

"Uh - I was saying that - um," she stammered and chuckled nervously, all the while giving me one of those guilty looks too.

"Kris?" I asked again, this time with a more firm tone. "What is wrong?"

"Um, Paris is tagging along with her boyfriend," she uttered it like she didn't even want to talk to me about this mere topic. If I didn't know better, she was in every hope to sprint out of my gallery.

I relaxed visibly and rolled my eyes at her. I averted my attention back to the magazine I was skimming through. Sometimes, Kris could overreact over everything. "And tell me, Kris, why is that such a bad thing?" I chortled and her eyes widened. She gulped nervously.

"HerboyfriendisAiden," she spoke it so quickly that I had to repeat her words in my mind twice to even find them eligible to understand. But when I did, I wanted nothing more than to bang my head on the nearest wall. My hands were shaking and I hid them under the counter.

I gasped and a nasty frown formed on my forehead. "That hideous drum-ass," I spoke through clenched teeth. My jaw was extensively tensed while my eyes were narrowed into two slits.

I glanced at Kris who was sporting a worried look.

"Wait! How did you know that they're dating?" I asked.

"She always said that she is dating this guy but I never really asked much about him," she started and paused to look at my reaction. It was worsening the more she spoke. "So um... yesterday she showed me one of her thousand pictures. It was of her and um well you know... Aiden smiling broadly at the camera."

"Oh," I muttered. "I told that guy to never show up his ugly face and yet he decides to show up with his girlfriend who also happens to be your good friend. Did he really forget about my warning and what I did to him the last time we saw each other? I told him to never show me his face ever again and so he left Greenlake for good!" I screamed like a madwoman the entire time and Kris blanched at my tone.